


Cipher Kind.

by PresidentGuppy



Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Human!Bill, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Illness, Kid!Bill - Freeform, Multi, Suicidal Thoughts, Wounds, aftermath of weirdmaggedon, h/c, more added as i figure them out
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-12-24
Packaged: 2018-08-31 01:36:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8558116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PresidentGuppy/pseuds/PresidentGuppy
Summary: When Bill wakes up alone with no memory in the middle of the woods he finds himself more lost than he could have ever imagined. Luckily for him, the Pines are always looking for more strays to add to the family. 
Many Thanks to AsinineProtagonist for helping me! <3





	1. In the Woods

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so this isn't technically a nanowrimo thing but i wanted to start something new anyway writing-wise.

_“A-X-O-L-O-T-L MY TIME HAS COME TO BURN I INVOKE THE ANCIENT POWER THAT I MAY RETURN!”_

\--

\--

When he wakes up, the world is dark.

 

The forest here is eerily dense, to the point that light can’t penetrate the crossing boughs still lightly dusted with changing leaves. The air is horrendously cold and he shudders deeply when a breeze past his prone form by, rustling the dying grass around him in waves that made him nauseous to think about.

 

He raises his hands; one, and then two. His fingertips were edged with permanent darkness, nails black yet oddly polished. They are small and boney, almost skeletal, as if his skin was too tight, like if he twitched the wrong way sharp white would tear free and red red _red_ would ooze like tar from the protrusions.

 

He spreads his fingers and counts. Yes, one, two, three…ten in all. That was right.

 

It didn’t feel right.

 

There are too many, he thinks, inspecting them shrewdly. Surely he only needed _eight_ in all.

 

Eight was a better number than ten, to be sure.

 

He lowers his hands. Drags his new fingers across his face, and takes a deep lungful of air. His skin is soft and almost-warm, _real_ in a way he can’t describe.

 

Was he never… _not_ real? He thinks about this. Tries to remember a time where he wasn’t on his back in the middle of a dark forest that groaned with every passing breeze.

 

There wasn’t any. He did not exist before this.

 

Or had he?

 

Idle fingers dragged down his throat. A strange flutter there, something living. He was living, and breathing, and he doesn’t think that he… _should_ be. His pulse is frail under his nails and he digs until it hurts and he’s real in a _very wrong way but he doesn’t know why._

 

Gingerly, he settles his hands on the grass beside him. It prickles his palms and he doesn’t like it but he pushes against it until he can’t feel it anymore.

 

He sits up.

 

The world tilts. Sways in a way that makes his eye roll. Eye? _Eyes_. There are two of these things.

 

He blinks, one after the other. Strange, disjointed. He thinks, oddly, that he only wants the _one_.

 

But he exists with two. Is that not how he is supposed to be?

 

He raises his hands, pats his face, his cheeks. Higher until his vision vanishes under dirt and darkness.

 

It stings. He presses and presses but it keeps hurting, _throbbing_ like they want to fall out but can’t.

 

He stops. Pulls away from his face and blinks at the dots blotting his vision.

 

“ _Weird_.” His voice is a raspy croak, as if long since unused. He swallows and frowns. Tries again. His mouth feels dry. Says it again and again until it sounds less strained. He is tempted, oddly, to _laugh_.

 

Sitting up properly, he looks down at himself. Simple black pants, white button up shirt. Something is missing, here.

 

He tilts his head, wriggled his toes. Pats his head as if searching for something, though he can’t imagine what.

 

He plucks unhappily at the fabric on his being. Something wrong, something _missing_. Many things, missing.

 

Was he, himself, _missing_?

 

He folds his legs under himself, rises to stand.

 

He falls.

 

Grass-prickles- _dirt_ on his face, he doesn’t like it. Shoves himself back up again, determined. His legs shudder but hold his weight this time. A loud _HA!_ Yes, that feels familiar somehow.

 

The world tilts back and forth and he hates it, hates this uneven place. One step grass, another a rock, awful things, _pointless_ things.

 

He stumbles to a tree and whines at the feel of it. Hard-rough-sharp. Cracked but soft with wet. _Moss?_ Branches, sharper, angrier on his skin. Raised lines that sting in pulsing waves when he moves.

 

He passes from one tree to the next. Strangled lines of trodden dirt and wild grass. A path. He blinks unevenly and tries to remember his name.

 

Some time later, when the sun has managed to get through the over brush and cast its warm rays upon his teetering form, he finds a town.

 

A small place, isolated by miles of dense forest and rough cliffs and one vast lake. It looks run down but worn with something like affection; signs of growth, of recurring company and half hearted care.

 

It’s a grid, he realizes idly, stumbling from packed mud trails to cement sidewalks. The lines are all perpendicular here; perfect crosses and angles.

 

He trails cold fingertips on stained brickworks and something stirs inside of him. Flawless rows of simple shapes. Something stacked, something similar.

 

Disintegrating upwards.

 

…There are people, here.

 

They talk amongst themselves, sometimes loud, sometimes hushed. A group of women look his way and wrinkle their delicate features. He cringes inside and doesn’t know why.

 

They have names.

 

He asks if they know his.

 

They think its a joke, at first. Look down at him, twisted mouths, _I don’t know, what is it?_ But he doesn’t know. They have names but he doesn’t and it twists inside like a hot knife why doesn’t he have a _name_?

 

They see his distress, and their faces change with something that makes his insides boil.

 

_Honey are you okay?_ They don’t want to believe him; a joke _its a joke_ they must think, eyes slowly getting wider. What’s your name where are your parents _what’s your name, child?_

 

_“My name is a cipher; it is both nothing and eternal, an amalgamation of madness that spreads like a plague upon the ground of dimensions far and wide_. _It is unpronounceable in human tongues and eternally unspoken._ ”

 

His gaze is red and violent, tinging his sight with malevolent rage. They could not possibly know and yet they _should_.

 

Someone screams. A crowd gathers, murmuring, frantic, getting louder with each passing moment they surround him.

 

He’s frozen, watching as a hand rises, a single digit points in judgement.

 

His face? His…

 

“The all-seeing _eye!”_

 

_Trust in the all-seeing, all-knowing **eye**_.

 

It rises unbidden in his mind, taunting. The very edge of omniscience. He knows many things but they are out of his reach. Brief flashes of light, of pain and of terrifying ecstasy.

 

The crowd wails in dismay. He is _possessed_ this boy is _enthralled_ call the _**priest** , _call the _**pines--**_

 

He runs.

 

He doesn’t know he is laughing until he’s deep in the woods, his voice echoing in the silence.

 

The crunching of fallen leaves under his feet becomes endless noise as the daylight fades to night, pinpricks of light glittering in the sky the closer the day drew to an end. The rapid decay of daylight left him lost, without sight to guide him.

 

The forest grows darker the further in he goes, the odd moonbeams to light his way blocked by the towering treetops above. All he had to guide him was the uneven streams of soft light pouring through the leaves, bleaching the color from the woods and reminding him of something hauntingly familiar.

 

He trails leaden fingertips across plants and trees, breathing ragged and harsh in the empty clearings and trails. He realizes, somewhat belatedly, that he has nowhere to go, and the thought of it makes something anxious curl in his chest.

 

These woods are not his home but they are all he has, and he will make do.

 

He casts his gaze at the base of a massive pine tree, and starts there.

 

It’s roots are so wide and curling they made for ample room for someone as small as he was, as if it were made for him. He hesitates only briefly before a cold breeze ushers him into the hollow, skin crawling in distress.

 

The dirt here is cold and stiff, but it’s covered in so many fallen sticks and leaves that he sinks in deeper than he thought he would. He settles in as well as he can, equal parts cold and unhappy. He is alone and tells himself that it suits him just fine, even as the feeling of his chest trying to cave in on itself says otherwise.

 

The forest groans on above him, dancing shadows and echoes of movement leaving him wary, _frightened_ in a way he can’t describe.

 

He does not sleep for a long time.

 

\--

 

There are monsters in the woods, and he is one of them.

 

With the break of dawn he sees them; gnomes and flying skulls and even the smallest of fairies.

 

He spends some time watching, until they approach him curiously and he hisses at them in malice. Something inside him curls with both fear and contempt for them.

 

Some of the most devilish ones would approach him, malicious grins spread across whatever warped faces they had. Others seemed to shrink away from his very presence, from the gleam in his eyes. _Fear_ he realized.

 

_Why were they scared? Why **are** they scared?_

 

He had no answers, and it bothered him deeply. Surely he should know _this_ , at least.

 

Irritation gives way to doubt. The people in the village feared him, and so too did the beasts of the forest. What was he, to cause such distress amongst the living?

 

There, too, was the accomplished feeling of being _powerful,_ watching as the beasts once so fierce cowered and fled from his presence _._ As if they could sense something he himself could not.

 

Among whatever these creatures were, he was powerful.

 

It was _familiar_ ; hauntingly so. He is not meant to be what he is but he has nothing left of himself to spare.

 

\--

 

Winter came fast.

 

He knew it was approaching, of course. The plants had been wilting around him, leaving behind strangled corpses that crunched underfoot as he trotted to and from campsites, stealing everything from gas lamps to sleeping bags. Anything that wasn’t nailed down was carried away in the night, to be hoarded carefully in his small hollow.

 

He is sick to death of marshmallows by the time his little camp was stuffed full of fabric and covered in as many protective tarps as he could wrap. He has a few cans along the far wall, though he has nothing that could possibly open them without making a mess, and he routinely digs out deeper gouges in the dirt for makeshift shelves and room. He uses the leftover dirt to pack it the outside roots, until his hole was insulated as much as it could be.

 

He cuts his fingers trying to claw open the cans on the days he was desperate, but he never dares to ask the people on the outskirts of his forest for help. He had been spotted just once, during the night. The scream of the woman who had seen him left him nauseous and frightened for many days afterwards, echoing in his head like a nightmare that wouldn’t go away.

 

At some point people started to look for him--stealing repeatedly from the same place left the people below suspicious, and he learns the hard way to cover his tracks when his home is torn through and emptied of everything he had gained.

 

His bitterness grows. He doesn’t realize he has reversed the gravity of the area until the top of his head is stopped by an overhanging branch some twenty feet in the air.

 

He screams with fright. There is no way get down, and he clings to the branch with fierce desperation until his voice his hoarse from his own noise.

 

The forest falls silent at his wailing, and the ground below absorbs his falling tears. He is dreadfully, _awfully_ alone, and the thought of it drives an anguished pike through his chest. Why was it that he was alone when the people who drove him away had others, had _families_ to help them?

 

The branch groans under his weight, and he crashes to the ground with it not too long after, the air _crushed_ out of his lungs, his vision turning black for a few precious moments.

 

He sucks in a short breath, suffocating on nothing. Tears keep dribbling from his eyes, and his voice is silenced without air. His head throbs in a frantic pulse and he wishes _desperately_ for it to stop.

 

His body begins to ache as he steadily begins to breathe again, sharp pulses shooting along his back where he had landed on stray pebbles and sharp sticks.

 

He drags himself across the dirt to his ruined home, gasping in pain. In the haze of sheer agony he thinks he’d like to die there.  Alone, _dreadfully_ alone with nothing to hold onto save for his own beaten self. The echoing thoughts of fear and paranoia. He never could remember being so scared of the dark, part of him was still convincing itself that he shouldn’t be scared of anything.

 

Within a few hours, his weary eyes closed, consciousness fading as he shivered in the bitter frost-laden air. In that moment, he wasn’t sure whether or not he really cared if he woke up.

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Found at last.

He wakes up half numb from the sheer cold, and realizes in a panic that an ice storm had begun.  

 

Frigid wind shrieks past the boughs of his pine, creeps under the ruined tarps and right through his frail walls to dig its frozen fingers under his skin. The thermometer he had stolen a month ago that had been left behind half sunk in the dirt was lower than he’d ever seen, and he regrets reaching for it when his hand prickles violently in the biting air.

 

He had somehow covered himself in his sleep with shredded remains of tarps and old leaves, but it was still not nearly enough to help him.

 

The storm had just started; the dirt-packed trail outside his hollow was still clear, though it was amassing blinding _white_ fairly quickly. Small flecks of hail were bouncing off the cold ground, and he hisses when some fly onto his bare skin and leave sharp red in their wake.

 

He can’t feel the arm he takes back from the light, but he’s beginning to feel the other--violent pulses of pain under the cold bite of frost. Moving it makes his vision go white for a precious few seconds, and when he sees again his face is to the ground once more.

 

Staring balefully out of his hole, he realizes that it’s awfully hard to look at--blurs of white and grey, the sharpness of the dead trees softened with a monotone haze. The noise, too, was oddly deafening, and he hisses at it without much force as the wind makes his tree bend across his vision.

 

The world was too loud, too _bright_ and cold. He doesn’t want it, _any_ part of it, and screws his eyes shut until his face hurts from the force of it.

 

Shuddering deeply and curling as deep into his hole as he could, he realizes a sobering thought. He has nowhere else to go, long since barred from the campsites and the sprawling town nearby. His face--his _eyes_ \--were a curse.

 

He is, without a doubt, _unwanted_ and _alone_ , and he is going to die in the first frost he sees without ever figuring out his own name.

 

He hopes the tree appreciates the nutrients when he inevitably decays directly underneath it, and the arrant thought of it makes a mad bark of laughter fly from his mouth. Another follows, and soon he is howling with hysterics, half drowned out by the shrieking wind above.

 

He thinks, terribly, that he will never recover.

 

\--

 

It’s been a long time since Stanford has seen snow--honest to god particles of ice and water falling from the sky in errant swirls.

 

But this wasn’t snow.

 

“This is _garbage_.” Stanley grouches, tossing his rolled up newspaper at the closed window his brother was staring at in a huff. “Haven’t had an ice storm in _six_ _years_. Of _course_ it’s got to start today of all days.”

 

_Today_ being the day the young Pines twins were to visit for the holidays. A whole month to see their niece and nephew again, delayed by a storm that left them and their bus a town behind for a solid three days while the roads were being closed.

 

Stanford drums his fingers along the window frame, thinking.

 

His machery for detecting the oddities amongst Gravity Falls had spiked not too long ago. He had gone out searching but had found nothing around town where the signal had flared originally, and had taken to investigation the forest around his old home once more whilst his brother resumed his odd business in the background--he had fun with it, and to be perfectly honest Stanford found it amusing as well, once he had gotten over it.

 

The radar was acting up again, making loud clicking noises vaguely reminiscent of a radiation detector, and he can’t shake the feeling that the storm is an after effect of whatever it was that had awoken recently in the woods--though what he still wasn’t sure.

 

“I’m going out.” He slams his fist on the sill, decided.

 

Stanley, who had been swearing at the distinct lack of cable, fell silent.

 

“Are you _crazy_?”

 

Well--as silent as a man like him _could_ be.

 

Stanford frowns, and toys with the idea of giving it some serious consideration. “ _Probably_. But if this storm is supernatural, I need to get to the bottom of it.”

 

He pulls out his indicator from his trench coat pocket; an odd contraption that had been made from the found parts of old radios. It hadn’t taken him long to realize that despite the tear being sealed, there may still be some strange leakages pouring into gravity falls from somewhere else. “It might not _end_ if that’s the case.”

 

Stanley wrinkles his nose at his brother, wondering not for the first time whether or not he had any common sense, but knowing full well there was no way to stop him.

 

“At least wear a _scarf_.” He grunts, tossing the well-worn trail of red that had been draped over his armchair. He can’t remember where he got the thing, but if it helped his brother fight frostbite he didn’t particularly care.

 

(He thinks its Mabel’s--or at least, that Mabel had _made_ it. She had left behind a great deal of her knittings around the shack before she had left, most of which on purpose. He still feels a happy warmth inside when he finds an errant sock or sweater, stuffed inside an odd place with a little note to go with it.)

 

Stanford gives a short huff of laughter, sending his twin a fond look. He was happy that he could get along with the other again, and once weirdmaggeden had ended they had gone right back to their childhood ways.

 

He wraps the scarf around himself as securely as he could--it smelled intensely of sugar, _had_ to be his nieces’-- and steps out the door.

 

He regrets it immediately.

 

Hail batters at every inch of him it can reach on its way down, and he has to raise his arm to ward off errant pellets as he walks off the porch and into the blanket of white that was now the Mystery Shack’s front lawn.

 

Trudging sideways against the wind so he could see his radar, he makes his way into the woods, listening intently for the click-click- _clicks_ of the device over the howling of the wind.

 

—

 

“Kid, wake up!” frantic hands shake him roughly. “Don’t tell me it’s too late. Kid you _have_ to get up!”

 

Bill lets out a small moan of protest. Moving made prickles dance up his aching limbs. Who was this voice, clattering about his head? Hoarse and frantic, and yet awfully familiar in a way that made his spine crawl.

 

He is oddly numb, lying crumpled in his hole. So long as he doesn’t move, nothing hurts--he’d like to keep it that way, quite frankly. He never wants to feel anything, _ever_ again.

 

He doesn’t open his eyes to see the intruder in his presence. _Can’t_ , now that he gives it some thought. It was as if his eyes had been glued shut, and twitching fruitlessly only serves to irritate his skin.

 

“Kid!” Stanford pauses only for a moment before he grabs a hold of the prone form, half buried in snow and fallen leaves, and _tugs_.

 

The child _howls,_ voice warped beyond comprehension with agony. Ford doesn’t need to look to see that the arm he had taken a hold of was _broken_ , and something inside him twists at the sound of the frantic pleas for him to stop, oh _stars stop it hurts it hurts so much_ \--

 

He bundles the thrashing form close, protective against the hail trying to beat them from above, and grits his teeth as he rises to stand on creaking knees. He’s glad his trench coat is as large as it is--the fabric is enough to wrap around them both.

 

His new charge stops howling--instead, a long line of gibberish is spoken through shuddering lips. He can’t make sense of it, but so long as the other was talking he didn’t really care. _Talking_ meant he was _awake_ , if dazed, and sleeping in this weather was liable to make sure he never woke up again.

 

“I don’t know what you were doing out here, kid,” Ford rasps, face half buried in the comforting scent of his borrowed scarf, “but I’m going to make sure this _never happens again_.”

 

The kid mumbles something into his sweater. He’d quickly realized the Ford was a furnace in comparison to the outside, and appeared to be wanting to hide in his clothes instead of provoking the ire of his contorted arm again.

 

The exposed skin of his arm is mottled with black and violet marks, swollen and irritated in the cold. Ford bundles him close to inspect it despite the weather and fails--he can barely see in front of him, it would have to wait.

 

He only hopes that it hasn’t been broken for too long.

 

“I’ll make you a deal, kid.” A particularly strong gust of wind and hail passes by, rattling chunks of ice off his coat as he turns away from it. Any longer in this weather and chances are both of them would be missing toes, assuming the kid hadn’t lost any already.

 

He wonders why the child is out here, far from any source of warmth, and the possibilities are as numerous as they are nauseating to think of.

 

The odd mumbling stops; Ford hopes it means he’s listening instead of catatonic.

 

“I’ll let you stay with my brother and I--he’s nice, don’t worry about that--for as long as you like, if in return you tell me your name. Sound fair?” He tries a light tone, _soothing_. He doesn’t know what this child has been through but he knows it must have been something awful.

 

There’s some shifting--still alive, that’s a good sign--before a pale hand is shakily offered.

 

Ford gives an amused snort before he quickly takes it in his own, wary that any more prolonged exposure would render his skin eternally numb, and shakes. While the action was hauntingly familiar, he knew he was safe.

 

Bill was long since dead. He had nothing to fear now.

 

Another violent gust; hail buffets them as if intent on their very demise, and Ford misses the tiny spark of blue fire that twines between them at the sound of a quiet voice saying _deal_.

 

The trip back to the shack takes much longer than Ford had anticipated. He keeps the child bundled in his coat talking as much as he can, though it is very little and often punctuated by stutters as he shudders violently in the cold.

 

He introduces himself--Stanford Pines, local scientist, interdimensional traveler. It doesn’t get the reaction he’d quite imagined--more awful shudders, as if he was shaking off death, and a half-strangled _ha!_ that sounded vaguely familiar.

 

Asking for the child’s name gives him a mouthful of incomprehensible gibberish. He thinks, vaguely, that either he was going deaf in his old age or the wind was getting _louder_. A creeping suspicions--the closer to home, the worse the storm, and the worse his newfound charge shuddered.

 

He shakes it off. Now wasn’t the time for idle theories.

 

He’s relieved when the shape of the Mystery Shack looms against the stark white snowdrifts. Coming home is no longer the paranoid basking, but instead reminded him of his family, reunited at last. Warm, _safe_ like he hadn’t known in a very long time.

 

Stanley is waiting for him by the door with warm blankets to spare when they finally make it to the front door, and with a gentle gust of hot air they’re safe inside at last.

 

“Please tell me that is a deer carcass in your coat and not some child you abducted off the streets,” Stanley groans, smacking himself in the face with his retrieved newspaper as he hides his face with his hands in despair. He doesn’t neglect to throw the warm--heated in the dryer before hand, he notes--over his shoulders regardless.

 

Stanford rolls his eyes, mouth twitching into a smile as he trudged to the parlor where his brother had already set up a roaring fire in the hearth. Two couches and the TV, too, seemed to have been dragged in despite the lack of a signal. Several of his books and a checkerboard were within easy reach, and Ford’s heart feels lighter than it has been for several hours to see.

 

“I got bored,” Stanley grumbles, sounding mildly embarrassed.

 

“So I’m sure,” Stanford laughs in reply. He sets his new companion onto the couch closest to the fire as gently as he can, sending a quick whisper to his brother to fetch the medical kit they keep in the bathroom.

 

His smile fades fast-- in the flickering light of the fire he can see that the child’s condition is far worse than he’d initially thought.

 

He’s half starved to death, terrifyingly pale and _covered_ in filth as if he’d never bathed in his life. He smelled strongly of pine needles and _dirt_ , and his eyes, Ford realizes despairingly, were quite literally frozen shut with tears and mud. His teeth chatter with his shudders, and he realizes that the small noises he was making was supposed to be _words_ , strangled by his rasping voice and unsteady jaw.

 

A sickening thought-- _what if it’s too late, what if he doesn’t make it_ \--before he crushes it with steel resolve.

 

He was going to help this kid if it _killed him._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY THANKSGIVING I HOPE YOU LIKE SUFFERING LOL


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The storm continues, much worse now than before.

****

Odd thoughts skitter across his mind. Stars and odd symbols clatter about his skull like they’re trying to embed themselves on the surface, burning code into his bones. Languages, both old and new scrawl across the surface, teasing, glowing, a name the name _it’s his name old and forgotten but still very real_ \--

 

Something--a calloused hand, gentle, familiar, on his shoulder. He can feel the warmth of it through his tattered clothes like a brand on his frozen skin, and he groans in protest as it takes hold and _moves_ , bringing his arm with it and oh that _hurts_ like nothing he’s ever felt, raw and twisted.

 

It’s rotten, he thinks deliriously as something is shoved under his skin. It’s rotting from the inside out and he’ll never get his arm back what a horrid way to _die_ \--

 

“Easy, _easy_ ,” The voice is gentle and soothing but his _arm_ \-- “it’ll be numb soon, it’s okay, you’re doing _very_ good.”

 

Some swearing in the background, a rumbling voice that moves close and then far away, “What the hell _happened_ to this kid?”

 

“I’m not sure,” the pain flares then lessens to a dull roar. It moves in a way that feels terribly _wrong_ and he tries to twist away but meets a wall of plush fabric instead. It is warm and he sinks into it like it was made for him and even as his arm blazes he settles into it with the softest of sighs.

 

An odd sound; something tearing. Fabric twirls around his rotting appendage and keeps it still.

 

“I think it might be whatever anomaly that’s been affecting my equipment. My radar hasn’t stopped going off since I found him.”

 

Wet fabric twitches against his cheek, to his sealed eyes. Brushes away the cold and gross from his lashes. He doesn’t open his eyes, doesn’t _dare_.

 

“Tell me what hurts,” patient swipes at his face, he can _feel_ the dirt peeling off like a second layer of skin. Turning away from it only exposes more to be cleaned, and he shudders at the feel of it rubbing life back into the frozen planes of his face.

 

He mutters faint protests as the wet rag returns to his eyes, cleaning thoroughly when it was realized he hadn’t opened them yet. He was not safe from it, and when the soothing voice asks him to open his eyes he turns away at once.

 

“Is there something wrong? Do your eyes hurt?” Gentle concern, utterly confusing. They don’t know they _can’t know_ \--

 

_The all-seeing eye!_

 

He grits his teeth and tries to bury his face into the comforting warmth of the blanket half wrapped around his frail form. If they see his eyes, if they _knew_...He would be sent back out into the cold, _awful_ storm still raging outside.

 

He can’t stand the thought of being alone all over again, to return to living half deep in his own frigid grave, starved for affection and wishing _desperately_ for something better.

 

“Hey, hey _easy,_ ” softly chiding, a hand settles on his forehead, brushes the frayed hair from his face, “Remember what I told you? You’re safe here. You can stay as long as you like, right?”

 

Footsteps approaching. Another blanket, significantly heavier than the last, settles on his shuddering form. Comforting, like a shield he could hide under. It smells faintly of lavender; he breathes it in deep and feels calmer for it.

 

He remembers. His name for the deal.

 

Something ancient, something binding. He is safe within the confines of a pact, sealed between a spark and a connection.

 

This he knows without any sort of proof, of memory. It is, quite simply, a _fact_. Indisputable despite his fear of the contrary.

 

They cannot be rid of him now. They know his name and he will know their home the very same.

 

“Take your time, kid,” the second voice says, not unkindly. This one, too, is oddly familiar. He scours his mind for a memory and pulls up nothing, as if it had long since scattered into unintelligible codes forever sealed with a cipher long since lost. “You don’t have to talk right away, but give us a sign you’re at least a _little_ bit okay.”

 

He is so, _so_ tired.

 

Even so, he twitches his unbound arm, raises his hand into the air and feels it being caught by another. He counts--one, two, so many _fingers_ , this person had an extra, even more than he did, how _strange_ \--and gives a faint squeeze with what little strength he has left.

 

It was enough.

 

They do not bother him with any more questions; they keep him quiet company, bringing him water and heated broth to drink until he is at _last_ warm inside and out. His horrendous shudders die out and he--

 

_Sleeps_ \--

 

As if he were dead, as if the world had lost its color and he was floating in an empty room of a cabin he doesn’t recognize, surrounded by eyes and windows into other places he’s never even seen and he screams and _screams_ but it echoes like mad laughter instead and--

 

He knows this place and it is _awful_.

 

\--

 

Ford puts a hand to the forehead of his sleeping guest, brow furrowed in concern. There was the beginnings of a fever, of an encroaching illness. Possibly from shock or stress; he writes it down in the notebook he keeps in his pocket along with a list of other symptoms.

 

Broken arm, too many scratches to count, numerous infections--new and old. Anemic, starving, _sick_.

 

He gives it more thought, twirling his pencil absently before he scribbles down, “ _Refuses to open eyes. Internal damage?”_

 

Stanley putters in, bearing a tray of mugs that smelled faintly of chocolate. He was anxious, glancing frequently at their guest. Ford knows he’s thinking of their niece and nephew, as if it was _them_ that had been out in the storm instead of safe a city away, waiting in a warm station for the weather to clear.

 

He takes the offered mug, watching as his brother takes the other arm chair across from him with a heavy sigh. They hadn’t expected to take in a sickly stranger who couldn’t be much older than fourteen, but there was no helping it.

 

“Never seen this kid around here before,” Stanley mumbles into the silence, staring deep into his mug as if it held answers to questions he hadn’t yet asked. “Been here for _years_ and i’ve never seen him.”

 

Ford feels a sickness churn in his guts and he has to resist the urge to start gnawing on his pencil end. “If he’s not from around here then how did he end up here? The campsites have been closed for awhile now.”

 

“Not much tourists come winter either,” Stanley grunts. He narrows his eyes, glancing at his brother. “‘Could be a runaway, just not from around here.”

 

Ford feels his heart sink. A myriad of thoughts-- _a runaway, a reject, abused or neglected--_ before he slammed a lid on them entirely. He didn’t have _evidence_. There wasn’t a point in hurting himself imagining the worst possible scenario, either. He drinks his cocoa and burns his throat in his haste.

 

There was also the Anomaly--formally capitalized for its rapidly growing significance. He wondered if it had anything to do with the child--if it _was_ , in fact, the child that caused such disturbances in Gravity Falls’ weather, or if it was simply _following_ him.

 

If it had _taken_ him, from wherever it is that he had come from.

 

Stanley sinks further into his chair, form slouched from thoughts of foul play. He is not unfamiliar with the thought--if a child had been kicked out of his home, as he had in his youth. He remembers the sting, the fear that he wouldn’t make it. He’d been far older than this at the time, and he wonders, hauntingly, what would have happened to him had he been a few years younger.

 

A faint sound; a strangled whimper from their guest and the two brothers were up in an instant, nearly knocking into each other in their haste.

 

They give him a brief check-over. He had jostled his arm in his sleep, and was cringing in such a way that he was making it worse for himself, too tense to let his arm settle. Stanley knows it’s too early for them to give him something for the pain again and yet he wants to ask anyway.

 

There was no lingering frostbite; a miracle. Ford had checked him over thoroughly and found no lingering shades of blue. Even so he was deathly pale where his blood vessels hadn’t fractured in the cold, and the shadows under his eyes were bruise-like.

 

Ford gently moves wispy hair out of their guest’s face and double checks for a head injury.

 

“What’s his name?” Stanley asks, voice a hushed rumble. He’s adjusting the blanket a third time, making sure the kid on their couch was completely cocooned safely inside. Worry made the wrinkles around his eyes deeper, and he looks far too much his age.

 

The storm rattles outside; it was continuous in its battle against Gravity Falls but they remained safe and dry inside. He thinks it’s a miracle Ford made it back, let alone with someone who had been in it far longer.

 

A twig removed from golden hair-- _where the hell had that come from--_ before Ford answers absently, “I’m not sure. It was hard to make sense of what he was saying. I’ll have to ask again when he’s not shaking so badly.”

 

Stanley sighs deeply through his nose, mouth dragging into a frown. He is honestly surprised the nameless child wasn’t _dead_.

 

“What are we going to do if he _is_ some sort of runaway?”

 

Ford gives his brother a sharp look. Stanley knows what he’s going to say-- _we don’t know if he is-_ \- but he cuts him off.

 

“What are we going to _do_ \--” he presses insistently, before his brother can even get a word in, “if they try to take him _back,_ and _they’re the reason he’s like this_?”

 

“We won’t hand him over,” Ford snaps, “ _Christ,_ Stan, do you think i’m a _monster_?”

 

“How are we going to _keep him_?” Stanley outright _snarls_ , ignoring the question, and Ford realizes what it is, exactly that Stanley is frightened of.

 

What it is that he’s remembering.

 

“We’re not going to lose him, Stan.” Ford says gently, “we’re not going to send him away and we’re not going to lose him to anyone either. _We got the kids back_ , didn’t we?”

 

Stanley is grinding his teeth, searching his face for honesty. Ford only settles when the tension finally leaves his brother’s shoulders, and when he turns back to their guest for a final check-over, he finds that the nameless child had placed his spare hand over his eyes and was trembling something awful.

 

_Awake_ , he realizes with a sinking heart. He wonders for how long he had been waiting for them to finish their argument and cringes at the memory. Exactly how much he had heard was unknown, but it probably didn’t sound very good.

 

“Sorry,” he kneels down to be level with the couch instead of looming over it, cautious. He pitches his voice down, something _gentler_ than the grumbling he’d been doing just moments before, and in the corner of his eye he can see his brother settling down just the same. “I hadn’t realized--did we wake you up? You haven’t slept for very long.”

 

“ _Just an hour_ ,” came the raspy reply. It’s significantly clearer than the quiet babbling from earlier, but still sounded half-strangled by frost in his throat.

 

Surprised, Ford glances at the clock above the mantle. Then he realizes that it had been broken for a _very long time_ , and wonders where he had gotten the idea of it.

 

“Only half,” Stanley grunts.

 

Ford glances at him and--yes, he has an old pocket watch in his hand. He’d been keeping track, then.

 

“ _Time is different there,”_ the voice is hushed and frightened. The palm of his hand presses deeply at his eyes and Ford wonders how badly it hurts, if he was making it worse, if it didn’t, in fact, _hurt_ at all.

 

“Where?” He asks instead, toying with his sleeve as he observes. His guest is hiding his eyes and he wracks his brain for reasons why--a conditioned response, fear, pain, _anything that wasn’t what made his spine crawl with dread_ \--

 

“I don’t _know_ ,” his voice wobbles, breaks at the end as if the very phrase was enough to hurt him. He does not know and it hurts and Ford should really, _really_ stop asking but he can’t seem to stop.

 

“Did you have a bad dream?”

 

“ _Ford_ ,” Stanley cuts in sharply, but it is too late, the answer--

 

“It’s not a dream,” He takes a ragged breath, “It’s not a dream or a place but it’s _real_ and it’s always there. It’s, it’s a separation, a _divided plane_ it holds _nothing--_ ”

 

He’s talking faster, anxious and afraid. The rasp is fading the more his voice projects and its familiar in a way that brings a creeping dread, that makes Ford’s heart plummet and memories of the summer return full force.

 

He does not see his eyes but the recollection of his voice cannot be denied the more he speaks _this is not a child at all this is_ \--

 

“ _Bill Cipher_.”

 

 


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A decision is made.

Hearing his own name feels as sweet as an axe to the head.

 

Which is to say; _not very_.

 

His eyes snap open unbidden, shocked, despite his spare hand holding them desperately closed and he sees--

 

Anger, pure and utter _fury_ and disgust and it _hurts_ inside but he honestly can’t say he didn’t expect it. This man, so utterly familiar, know him _knows his name_ but Bill doesn’t know him in turn, only faint echoes of something that used to be but isn’t anymore.

 

“Get out,” his voice is ragged and the storm outside howls in tune, “Get _out--_!”

 

But he can’t, _he can’t leave,_ he wants to oh stars he does but _he knows his name_.

 

“I _c-can’t_ ,” his voice wobbles, borderline disappears from his throat before he can force it out through chattering teeth.

 

The realization makes the blood drain from Ford’s horrified face.

 

“You brought that _monster_ into our _Shack?!_ ” Stanley is louder. He also has an _axe_ , and is holding it like a pointer directly at Bill’s face. Bill isn’t quite sure where he pulled it from, but the fact of the matter was that it was very much _aimed at him_. His face is rosy with rage and his mouth is torn into a deep grimace that multiplies his wrinkles by the hundreds.

 

Something twists inside, something like a horrified laugh. Bill’s mouth spasms under his hand and he wants to laugh so badly but he wants to _cry_ too. Somewhere stuck in between he sits on the couch and does absolutely _nothing_ to help himself.

 

He doesn’t have to.

 

Ford waves a faint hand at his irate brother, his haunted eyes not leaving the sort-of demon on his couch. He doesn’t know how Bill managed to survive, or how he came to be this way but he knows it like it’s an _indisputable law_ that Bill--

 

“He’s _stuck here with us_ ,” he rasps, voice hopeless as he sinks over and then _into_ to his chair, motions unconcerned despite his horror. “ _I made a deal with him_.”

 

And then he buries his head in his hands with the groan of a dying man who had just lost his entire world.

 

Bill gnaws absently on his fingernails, watching with a detached sort of interest. He wants to know how they know him but doesn’t dare ask; not yet. Stanley wasn’t pointing the axe anymore but it was still in his grip, glinting mournfully in the fire-light.

 

His arm hurts and he is very tired, but he doesn’t relax until the second brother also retires to his own chair, just as pale.

 

“What deal did you make,” he asks, as if Bill wasn’t there. As if he wasn’t watching them with the same golden gaze that he had cast on them just months before. “What did you _do_?”

 

Ford answers, and his brother makes the pained noise of the dying before he falls silent.

 

Bill keeps nibbling on his nails. He feels _empty_ , and despite the fact that he knows better he swallows the sharp fractures of his keratin like he was starving for them, anxiety broiling his insides to nothing.

 

Ford sighs deeply, raises his eyes to the roof in a hopeless gesture, and then turns back to his-- _permanent_ , he now knows--guest.

 

“Who are you _possessing_ ,” he says it slow, _careful_ , as if he knows he won’t like the answer but feels compelled to ask anyway. “Are they _still alive in there_?”

 

His voice cracks at the end; he doesn’t think he’ll be able to handle the fact that Bill had managed to kill someone in the town he had sworn to protect, not even a mile from his _home_. The demon had never killed anyone that Ford had known about but oh, he could only _imagine_.

 

There had been others before him, after all.

 

Bill pauses, his fingertips mere centimeters from his teeth. He has the terrible urge to gnaw them out of existence, and not having an answer as to why distracts and frustrates him.

 

“ _Possess_?” He questions blankly, blinking wide eyes. They cannot be rid of him and now he can watch them, watch another _person_ up close, and it’s utterly _delightful_ to watch the face of someone else for a change--even if it’s a terse grimace. “I don’t own _anything_.”

 

He scowls, mimics the face of the man next to him, before it falls away like a mask that didn’t fit properly. “They took everything I had. _But_ ,” and here he pauses, mouth spasming in the echo of a smile, “now I have   _you_.”

 

Stanley makes an angry growl.

 

“And you, too.” Bill amends quickly, not wanting to offend.

 

Ford looks ill; as if the blood had drained from his body, leaving an empty husk behind. He should have known Bill wouldn’t be so easily forthcoming with an answer. Knowing the demon, it was a fifty-fifty chance, and he would _never tell which_.

 

Bill resists the temptation to chew his own hand off by playing idly with the blankets. He was warm and he could move again, but at the cost of feeling his body being ravaged with pain. His arm twinges in steady pulses of heat and he’s not sure he really wants to _feel_ again. He grinds his teeth and glances between the two brothers but says absolutely _nothing,_ terrified that he would lose what little he had gained.

 

“What are you after, _now_?” Stanley's voice holds a threat, a warning. He sneers and Bill hurts inside.  “Don’t think I won’t find a way to stop you again you grubby little _triangle_.”

 

Bill sinks his teeth into his spare hand and says around it, grumbling like a petulant child despite the nausea broiling in his stomach, “‘M not a _triangle_.”

 

He is more than just one shape; he knows because the rapidly bleeding hand shoved into his mouth is made of _many_. Circles and ovals. A veritable _decahedron_ if simplified to its most basic of forms. His thinks, idly, that his hand might even be a _square_ , if one dared to ignore the roundness of his skin pulled taut against his teeth.

 

“Stop that, Bill.” Ford looks as nauseous as Bill feels. “That’s _not_ your body to damage.”

 

Bill sinks his teeth in deeper, irate. Feels it sink past muscle and veins to the bone hidden underneath and _hisses_ like it was his fault instead of his own. Blood oozes down his chin and _plips_ onto the blanket that was now barely covering him in odd little droplets. He, quite suddenly, _hates_.

 

“ _Bill_ ,” Ford snaps at him, reaching for his hand, face twisted in a grimace that spoke of both pain and anger.

 

Bill tears his hand out of his mouth, shredding skin, and howls, “ _It’s **mine** i’ll do with it what I **want**_!”

 

Ford makes to grab his wrist but Bill is faster; he shoves his hand into his looming face and smears red across rough skin and glass panes. He is _laughing_ , enraged and fearful. “This is _mine_. _You_ are _mine_ and so is _he_ but I _don’t want you anymore._ ”

 

Clattering; Stanley has rocketed out of his chair and has the axe again, which hadn’t ever actually left his side, with an enraged shout.

 

Bill recoils from them both, eyes wide and fearful. There are brief flashes of memory; of things not quite there but still violent to behold, and the couch lunges away from the two brothers with a metallic howl, gouging lines into the wooden floor as it goes. Outside the wind howls as if agonized, sending hail against the windows and outer walls like it was desperate to break in. The fire roars a brilliant _blue_ before it vanishes, as if stuffed out by an invisible hand, plunging the room into utter darkness.

 

It is suddenly very cold, and _very_ quiet.

 

No one dares to move.

 

“ _Easy_ ,” Ford breathed, slowly extending a hand to his frozen brother. “Put it down, Stanley. _Slowly_.” Blood drips off his glasses and through the smear of red he can see his worst enemy cringing away from him as if _frightened_ instead of _all-powerful_.

 

His brother’s grip tightens and for a fraught second Ford fears that he won’t listen--but he obeys silently. The axe is gently lowered to the ground with a quiet _thunk_ , Stanley’s eyes never leaving the form half curled in fear across the room.

 

Ford lets out a shuddering sigh, willing himself to calm down. He can see his breath in the frigid atmosphere of the room, confirming his earlier theory. The child--no, _Bill_ , was influencing the weather.

 

His mind raced; Bill wasn’t acting at _all_ like his usual, pompous self. He was _scared_ , for one thing--something the scientist had never seen himself. He was strangely _human_ despite the power that was making frost gather along the walls, and he is faintly reminded of a child throwing a _tantrum_.

 

He takes his glasses off and tries to clean them on the end of his sweater, thinking.

 

He was injured and sick despite his phenomenal powers, and Ford has no idea why. Bill has a myriad of magical spells at his disposal, he can recall the other stating this on numerous occasions whilst working together. _Surely_ he would be able to heal himself, he thinks frantically.  

 

He remembers Stanley’s recovery, how some bits and pieces of his life were still missing, and wonders if Bill, too, was missing something vital.

 

If the demon was _changed_ , somehow, by his temporary death in Stanford’s mind.

 

“Bill,” He says, voice cautious. He returns his glasses to their rightful place in time to see a golden eye flick his way before settling back on his brother, as if Bill couldn’t decide which was more dangerous.

 

Blood was oozing steadily from his shredded hand; he seemed only seconds away from putting it back in his mouth for reasons yet unknown.

 

An idea forms in Ford’s head as his memories of the day fit together like a particularly nasty puzzle, something that left a vile taste in his mouth. “I’m going to ask you something, and I need you to answer me honestly, okay?”

 

He speaks gently, as if talking to a child, because the niggling thought in the back of his head states that he _is_. That Bill’s memory had been wiped clean, just like Stanley’s.

 

Only this time, there had been no one there to help _him_.

 

“Do you remember the _first day we met_?”

 

Stanley gives him befuddled look but he ignores it, realizing with a sinking feeling that Bill’s face held the same confused expression. Ford realizes with a jolt that Bill is actually resisting the urge to gnaw on his hand again, by the way it spasms towards his mouth and then back to the blanket again.

 

As if he was trying, despite his earlier statement, to be _obedient_.

 

“It,” Bill’s voice cracks, wobbles in disuse.The sound was far from the booming echo it used to be; small and fearful.  “It was just _today_...wasn’t it?”

 

Panic ripples across his face, his visible eye rolling. He knows he is wrong but doesn’t know _why_ , Ford realizes.

 

“I don’t--I don’t _know_ you,” he spits the words out as if they burn him inside, and he shudders in the rapidly decreasing temperature. Vicious flashes of memories; nothing he can hold onto. They vanish as soon as they appear, leaving the taste of ash in his mouth with no indication as to _why_.

 

A short huff of a sigh. Tension was bleeding out of Ford’s shoulders with his resignation. He could hear Bill’s sincerity from a mile away.

 

He had lost his memories completely.

 

Stanley gives his brother a sharp look. He knew that sigh; he’d heard it a thousand times over the past few months, generally directed at him.

 

The sigh that meant Ford was _giving in_.

 

“He’s as close to human as he’ll ever _get_ , Stanley.” a pleading look; he can’t believe his ears. His brother shuffles close as if to share a secret and he has to reject the urge to deck him for it. “This is our chance to _change him for the better_.”

 

“You’re _insane_ ,” Stanley hisses in reply. Bill was watching them, eye unblinking and terrifying. He could probably hear them, too, though he gave no indication of understanding the subject at hand.

 

“Stanley he is _bound here with us anyway_ ,” Ford bites his tongue, trying to reel in his own venom. His brother is completely understandable--Bill had tried to ruin their lives and even their _dimension_ before, after all. His own betrayal at the demon’s hands still stings now and again, which makes it all the harder for him to do this.

 

To give Bill another chance.

 

To let him _redeem_ himself.

 

(He can’t lie to himself--he still wants that friendship they had shared such a long time ago. Wanted desperately to believe that it wasn’t all an _act_. That somewhere in Bill’s endless soul there was still affection for him remaining, if somewhat skewed by his own purpose.)

 

Stanley still has his eyes to wide for him to be completely on board with this decision, but he could see his brother mulling it over. Debating with himself as he tries to find the logic in the situation.

 

Ford knows he’s won when Stanley’s shoulders slump.

 

“Fine,” he grumbles, rubbing his temples in aggravation. “ _Fine_ , but _you’re_ the one who has to take care of him.”

 

Ford’s mouth twitches in the briefest of smiles. He’s not entirely sure when his brother had started sounding like an actual _adult_ but it was always a delight to see, after all that they had been through. That _he_ had been through.

 

He steels his shoulders; takes a deep breath, and turns to his new charge.

 

“Alright, Bill,” he perks up at his name, looking wary yet hopeful at the tone and a surge of guilt lashes at Ford’s insides along with the nausea. It was going to take some getting used to, having to look into that eye all over again.

 

Having to view his worst enemy as something better.

 

“It’s time to get you cleaned up.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man i am so PUMPED for winter break like you would not even bELIEVE;;;


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An important realization

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy holidays!! :D Figured I'd post this now since I may be busy tomorrow--we'll be having family over ahhhhh;;;; But yeah I hope whoever you are or whatever you believe in you have a nice week and party hard-y >u< ~~~~<3

Bill can’t remember ever having a bath before but he decides that it is his new favorite thing.

 

Steam rises from the warm water and he sinks into it as much as he can with a delighted hum, feeling as his his insides were melting into a delightful ooze. He’s never been so thoroughly _warm_ , deep inside as much as the outside. The pressure on his chest is an odd feeling, and he plays with the air in his lungs for buoyancy with utter delight. The river had always tried to drag him under but this was nice, _safe_ and clean in a way he can’t remember ever seeing.

 

After an apology that sounded like it was painful to chew on, Ford had insisted that Bill make use of the bathroom while they cleaned the parlor.

 

He’d been given new clothes to replace the tattered rags he’d been wearing before, and he is delighted in the feel of thick woven fabric against his skin. Ford had watched him bury his face in the sweater with a look of mild concern before brushing it off and instructing him on how to make use of the bathtub and the various bottles of hair products.

 

“I know it’s tempting but only use a little bit--pay attention Bill this is important--” Ford was tall, looming despite the fact that he was bent over to instruct him of the various uses of the bathroom. He had been staring with rapt attention to the details of his crooked form but the use of his name startles him to attention-- _Bill_ , that’s what it was. How could he have forgotten something so _simple_?

 

Ford had kept talking, not noticing Bill’s rapidly wandering attention. Now he can’t really remember any of it; despite his efforts he’d been too busy staring at Ford’s face and trying to guess how he knew him.

 

He’d come up with mostly nothing, of course. Just vague feelings that faded so fast he felt like he had imagined them.

 

_Sixer had always been thorough_ , was one of them that stuck. It swirled in his head until he agreed to it wholeheartedly, and it settled into his brain like it was meant to be there. Progress, despite his mind's best efforts to the contrary.

 

He watched the dirt slough off his body like shedding a second skin, scratching in deep when it tries to stick. The water turns dark, swirls of grey and red with odd flecks of brown, and he feels less clean the darker it gets. The bath is comfortably warm but it feels thick, like it wants to keep him there.

 

He’s not entirely sure he wants to stay the longer he’s in. He almost regrets getting in in the first place, because the grime feels swollen and viscous and ready to poison him from the outside in.

 

Bill hauls himself out of the tub, shuddering at the loss of heat. He stands, dripping on the mat, as he tries to remember what to do next.

 

The sweater is still on the countertop where he had left it. He picks it up in reverent hands and feels the echoes of a memory. The design on the front is a familiar symbol; a star trailed by lines of color.

 

Something inside his chest throbs. This symbol has meaning--an important one, one that he can no longer remember but still clings to regardless. Faint impressions of familiarity. He despairs at the empty space in his head but recognizes the echo.

 

This symbol is one of _his_.

 

Clicking thoughts, like a gear or a wheel set into motion. Something that slots into place; perfect in its shape and design. Yes, this is one of _his_ , and he will not lose it again.

 

He slips the sweater on and instantly regrets it. The woven fibers absorb the rest of the water trailing off his frame and presses, damp, on his already soaked skin. It’s heavier on his body than he had expected it to be, soaked in murky water, and is long enough that it reached mid-thigh and covered his hands almost entirely from sight.

 

He eyes the rest of the fabrics on the countertop and thinks he’s done something wrong, here.

 

Several loud raps at the door; he freezes as if caught in a crime, heart thundering in his chest with fear.

 

“You alright in there, kid?” The second brother--not sixer, _Stanley_ , his brain supplies helpfully. He stays tense; the man on the other side of the door still sounds gruff but maybe _less_. Bill doesn’t know how to tell if he’s lying and if he, in fact, wants to bludgeon him with something vaguely sharp. “Don’t tell me you _drowned_ in there.”

 

Bill tries to steel his nerves. _He can’t hurt you through the deal_ , he thinks, even though his nervous system tries to scream otherwise. He grits his teeth and ends up grinding them instead when there’s another knock at the door.

 

“I--” his throat tries to close in fear. He casts his eyes around the room and realizes with a sinking feeling that it was a horrendous _mess_. Stanley had already griped about the mess in the parlor; Bill wonders if he’s crossed a line here, too.

 

He wonders if it is, in fact, the _last_ line he’s going to cross.

 

“Just a minute!” He drags a long towel off the rack nailed to the wall and tries to wipe away the grime he’d left behind. The towel soaks up the murky puddles nicely but reaches its saturation point sooner than he’d hoped, leaving him smudging grey along the floor tiles instead.

 

He hasn’t put on the rest of the clothes; he drags on a pair of soft pajama bottoms and some cozy socks as the grumbling on the other side of the door continues.

 

He opens the door, tense as a spring, and blurts out an apology.

 

Stanley blinks down at him, startled.

 

“Jesus, kid,” his mouth spasms and Bill realizes with a small jolt that it’s the beginnings of a _smile_. “You look _worse_ than before. Don’t tell me _Ford_ picked those out.”

 

Bill glances down at himself uncertainly. The sweater is a deep pink, his pants an array of soft blues dotted with clouds and moons, and his socks a vibrant green. Water from a puddle he’d missed was sinking into his socks and he cringes at the feel of it, wondering what he’d done wrong.

 

“Don’t worry about it, kid.” Stanley drawls, looking utterly amused. Then he squints; at Bill’s hair that was stuck in odd curls and then at the room itself, still covered in grime with a tub full of warm darkness. “...are you even actually _clean?_ ”

 

Bill worries at his bottom lip. He isn’t, not _nearly_ enough but he doesn’t want to tell this man _no_.

 

Stanley watches him struggle, something unreadable in his gaze, before he lets out a long sigh.

 

“Ford made more soup for you,” He points a thumb over the appropriate should in the direction of the kitchen, “you can take another bath after. Go on, then.”

 

He still has a rolled up newspaper, and waves it under Bill’s nose warningly. “Next time actually dry off, huh?”

 

Bill, a little confused but relieved he hadn’t been axed, shuffles out of the older man’s way and skitters to the relative safety of the kitchen with a stuttered affirmative.

 

He’d rather face Ford instead. His eye spasms as if about to receive a particularly nasty blow, and doesn’t stop until Stanley is out of sight again, even when he presses down on it with a trembling hand.

 

The faint smell of soup wafts over, pulling Bill from his confused musings to the form of Ford, who was absently stirring something on the stove and looking to be deep in thought.

 

Bill hesitates. He hasn’t been noticed yet but--he has the urge to both become explosively loud and utterly silent, and isn’t sure which would irritate more. He taps his feet on the linoleum but the sound is too quiet to hear thanks to his slightly damp socks.

 

His feet are cold and he wants to take them off but--he’s not quite sure where to _put_ them.

 

In his musings he fails to notice Ford watching him from the corner of his eye.

 

_Strange little thing_ , Ford thinks, observing critically as Bill eyes his feet but does little else. The Bill he had known would’ve leapt at the opportunity to scare someone when their back was turned but-- _well_. This isn’t the same demon he had known, he has to remind himself, this was a demon whose endless power and spirit had been crammed into a human form and had probably lost chunks of himself to fit.

 

He had puzzled over several theories with his twin as Bill had been preoccupied elsewhere. The once-triangle was no longer nearly-omniscient, and they had been able to brainstorm without fear of being spied upon.

 

There were many possibilities contributing to Bill’s situation, and he wrote them in the margins of his small notebook. He had assumed that erasing Stanley’s memories would have erased Bill’s existence with it, but he’d been deeply wrong. It was possible that Bill had simply lost his own memories instead but had survived elsewhere; perhaps the mindscape, though he’s not entirely sure how Bill would have managed to escape it on his own without any prior knowledge to guide him.

 

Other theories; that trying to erase Bill--an immortal dream demon with unmeasurable power-- had altered reality itself to bring him back into existence. That reality simply couldn’t _survive_ without him, though Ford isn’t entirely sure the universe was sentient enough to make such a thing occur.

 

Or perhaps that Bill had one last trick up his sleeve that he’d saved for the slim possibility of his own impending demise.

 

“You can sit at the table, Bill.” He shakes off his thoughts--there was no use pondering them whilst Bill was still in the same room. He may not be omniscient anymore but he still had _power_ , though the specifics of which he was hazy on.

 

Just to be safe, he thinks determinedly.

 

Bill jumps at his voice-- _his name_ \--as if unused to hearing it and something twists inside Ford’s gut at the thought of it. He wonders how long it’s been that Bill has been alone and feels like it’s far longer than it should have been.

 

He skitters to a seat, shoulders hunched, and Ford brings him a steaming bowl and a spoon. It was basic broth, not anything fancy. He and Stanley both were terrible at cooking but he knew the basics at least--it had all the amino acids Bill’s starved body would need, regardless of the taste, and it was unlikely to be rejected.

 

He had measured everything perfectly, he was sure.

 

Bill stares at the spoon in his hand and then hesitantly stirs his food in a motion that Ford recognizes as mimicry. He watches, severely tempted to observe Bill figure it out for himself, before deciding that was simply too mean-spirited and something his niece would scold him for.

 

He instructs Bill on basic table manners, the dawning realization coming to him that despite the fact that Bill had watched humans for centuries, whatever he may have noted of common habits and mannerisms was long since lost.

 

Bill-as-a-human could speak english, affect the weather and eat with his hands but unfortunately do _very little else_.

 

He keeps a close eye on his new charge as he eats his own bowl, noting that Bill was dripping on the table. His hair flopped over his face in errant curls to partially cover one eye, which was closed.

 

“Does it bother you?” he blurts out, and then kicks himself. Intentionally stirring Bill’s memories was probably the worst idea he could have right now but he can’t seem to stop his mouth. “Having more than one, I mean.”

 

Bill stops, spoon halfway to his mouth, to stare at him. Both eyes, yellow with unnaturally long slits, stare as if deciphering a particularly tricky puzzle.

 

And then, very quietly, as if he wasn’t sure if he should say it but felt like he had to--

 

“ _Yes_.”

 

He is far too intense for a normal child to be, eyes flashing red for just the briefest moment, and Ford thinks despairingly that Bill will never manage to be _truly_ human.

 

Stanley meanders back into the kitchen, interrupting the tension to announce that the bathroom was clean again and that Bill had better hurry for another bath before the water gets cold.

 

Bill, Ford notes, shrinks from his brother and takes the most indirect path around him as possible.

 

“...do you think he remembers?” Stanley asks when he’s gone, gesturing vaguely to his fist as he sits in the seat Bill had left vacant. “I mean, just a _little_?”

 

His voice has the sounds of longing, as if him being the only one to witness and remember decking an all-powerful dream demon in the single eye was unfair to him somehow.

 

“It might be the axe you waved in his face,” Stanley drawls, amused despite himself. The tension drains from his shoulders and he tucks the idea in his pocket journal, listening to his brother snort.

 

“...Doesn’t eat much, does he?” Stanley prods at Bill’s abandoned bowl, only half empty and still warm.

 

“I didn’t expect him to,” Ford replies, flicking through his notes. _Anemic, starving, sick_. “He looks accustomed to not having much so if he _did_ eat the whole thing it’d probably end up all over the floor not long after.”

 

His brother grimaces before draining the bowl himself, muttering that it could use some salt.

 

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Ford’s mouth twitches up into a smile. It wavers when he glances out the window; the storm outside was over b1ut it was still a frigid nightmare. The Corduroys will have their hands full clearing the ice and snow from roads in the morning, and then--

 

“ _What will we tell the twins?”_  



End file.
